into the mystical

In the sea rocks in the stone pockets under the tide's lip, in water dense as blindness they slid like sponges,  like too many thumbs. I know this, and what I wanted was to draw my hands back from the water---what I wanted was to be willing to be afraid. But I stayed there,  I crouched on the stone wall while the sea poured its harsh song through the sluices, while I waited for the gritty lightning of their touch, while I stared down through the tide's leaving where sometimes I could see them--- their stubborn flesh lounging on my knuckles. What good does it do  to lie in the sun all day loving what is easy?  It never grew easy, but at last I grew peaceful: all summer my fear diminished as they bloomed through the water  like flowers, like flecks of an uncertain dream, while I lay on the rocks, reaching into the darkness, learning little by little to love  our only world.